Talent Chronicles 2 - Impulse Control

  “You never thought of me as anything but a lab rat.”

  “That’s not true. I think of you as a tremendous achievement. You were my first success. You’re just the kind of Ability-Affected person people are afraid of, putting thoughts into people’s heads, making them do anything you want.”

  “The way you do.”

  Piers smiled. “I guess you’d see a certain irony in that.

  But that kind of power can’t just be running amok. It scares people. It needs to be in the hands of an organization people can trust.”

  “Like NIAC.”

  “People do trust NIAC. We’re helping you kids control your abilities so that you won’t accidently hurt anyone or use them for personal gain. This technology I’m developing will eventually allow all people with abilities to be controlled. Of course, we’re still a long way from that…”

  “No. It stops now.”

  “Is that what you’re here for? To threaten me?

  Anderson,” Piers scoffed, “you must know that’s not going to work.” He reached for a small electronic device on the table. I looked to Anderson who shook his head at me. Piers reached under his hair and in the stillness of the room we could hear something snick into place. “Convince your friends to leave the room at once. Have them turn themselves in to the guards.”

  “Um…no. I don’t think I’m going to do that, Dr. Piers.”

  Piers looked shocked. His hand shot up into his hair where he’d put the device. “Anderson, tell these kids to go.”

  “I heard you the first time. Here,” he pointed to his ear,

  “and in here,” he pointed to his head. “See, that’s what I’m telling you. I’m through taking orders, yours or anyone else’s. My mind is my own again. Do you know what that means, Dr. Piers?”

  Piers shook his head. He was pale and his eyes were wide.

  “It means no more experiments. This whole sick dream of yours is all over.”

  Piers backed away another step and fell into his chair.

  His hands were shaking. “N-no m-more experiments,” he stuttered. He reached behind a stack of books on the table, pulled out a gun, and without pausing stuck it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

  The sound of it echoed with Elle’s scream and for what seemed like a long time I couldn’t stop looking at the pattern of blood and brains on the wall. But I think it was really only a second.

  “Holy Jesus Christ, Anderson! You were just supposed to convince him to stop the research.”

  “It’s stopped,” Anderson said blandly.

  I wanted to wring his neck right there, but I had to keep it together. We all did. “Hey, you guys,” I snapped, pointing at Rand and Craig. “Don’t you even think about getting sick and leaving your DNA all over this room.”

  “We gotta go,” Karen said. “Now.”

  We’d hardly taken but a few running steps down the corridor when the alarms started to sound. “Someone in one of the rooms hit a panic button!” Karen told us.

  We kept running, with Craig in the lead, back the way we came. Suddenly, he just stopped. “That path just ended,”

  he told us, before taking off in a different direction. I heard a groaning sound coming from above. I looked back to see a fire barrier drop down and block the way we had come. As we ran, more came down behind us. Craig continued to move rapidly, never pausing, sometimes almost tripping over himself as he made a quick turn down a new corridor. Then I heard the groaning sound up ahead.

  “Craig, stop!” Somehow I managed to reach him and yanked him back just in time to avoid seeing him squashed by a fire door.

  We were trapped.

  “Ok, everyone, just calm down,” Karen said.

  “Calm down? What’s there to be calm about?” Craig shrieked.

  “Calm down, or I’ll have Anderson calm you down,”

  Karen said, but she was looking at me. “Elle, can you fix this? Can you return it to its original state of not being in our way?”

  Elle concentrated on the mechanism, and the door began to inch up. “I’m not…sure…I can do this.” Her face was white with the strain and she had broken out in a sweat.

  As soon as there was room, I pushed myself under the door.

  Once on the other side, I started to lift. The other guys came through and tried to help, but it was a ton steel that wanted to come back down. My muscle mass grew as I tried to keep the door up. “Pull. Her. Through,” I gritted out. Rand crawled back under. I knew the moment he had Elle because suddenly it was twice as hard to hold it up, and I prayed, terrified that I would drop it before they were clear.

  “They’re through, Ethan.” I felt Karen’s hands, pulling me away. “You can let go.” She pulled me back as the door crashed down again.

  There wasn’t even time to be relieved. We were back to running. Craig said we had a clear path to the outside, but fire barriers were still coming down and we were barely staying ahead of them. I looked back and saw that Karen was falling behind. Elle was pulling at her arm. I turned to go back for them.

  “Ethan, look out!” One of the fire doors dropped down and almost cut off my toes. I hadn’t even heard it coming.

  And now it stood between me and the girls.

  “Elle!” I called to her. “Can you lift it at all?”

  “She’s trying, but I think she’s pushed too far already.”

  “I know it’s hard, but even just a few inches. Just enough to let me get my hands under it. Can you do that much?”

  “I’m sorry. I just can’t.” Elle’s voice was faint. “Ethan, you’ve got to get the boys out of here.”

  “We’re not leaving you.”

  “No way!” Rand yelled through the door. “We’re not going without you!”

  “Rand,” Karen said, “the guards are mobilizing to come in here and investigate. You’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Anderson,” I said, “take the boys. I can get them out.”

  “How?”

  “Ethan, no,” Karen said, though the door, while in my mind she was chattering away about self control and all I’d worked for. Like any of that mattered.

  “Just take them and go. Hurry.”

  “Rand, I need to you to go with Anderson. Ethan’s going to get us out, but you have to go right now, do you hear me?” Karen called.

  “Karen, what’s happening?” I heard Elle ask.

  I had the ridiculous thought that I never wanted her to see me like this.

  Then don’t do it, Karen thought.

  I could hear Anderson barking at the two boys as their footfalls faded down the hallway and disappeared amid the sirens that continued to blare. I thought about sirens, opened myself up to the noise, the insanity-inducing noise of them. I thought about the guards Karen mentioned outside, and how they were coming with their guns and their boots, and about what they might do when they found Karen and Elle, how they would treat them. It made me angry. Sick and angry and terrified because I couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t stop them. I couldn’t stop anything. Not really. I couldn’t stop this mess from happening. Couldn’t stop Karen and Elle from getting trapped behind this door. I couldn’t open it, couldn’t get to them.

  I let all that frustration and fear fill me, let it turn to anger, let it burn through my veins until it felt like fire under my skin, boiling me from inside. I felt my muscles pop and swell, felt like my skin was being peeled away. I heard myself screaming, felt the hot air tearing out of my throat in a mindless roar.

  Somewhere inside the conflagration of rage that had taken over my body, I was still there, a small, quiet presence in the middle of the storm that was watching, thinking, seeing, but didn’t have any control of the beast I’d unleashed. I could see my own limbs, now grotesquely muscled and disproportionate to my body. They tore through the steel door and stomped it down.

  Karen and Elle were huddled in a corner. Elle screamed when she looked up at me, and Karen wept. They were swept up in those huge arms, and the
n we were moving, faster than anything that big and ungainly should move, back down the corridor in the direction the boys had gone.

  There were stairs, and at the top an open door was letting in the smell of the outdoors. The girls were clinging to my misshapen body and bounced against me as I barreled up the steps and then we were out the door and onto the roof.

  Rand was there, alone, waiting for us. The beast didn’t pause to acknowledge him, but I’ll never forget the look of horror on his face when he saw what had his sister. And then we were flying over the edge. And then we were falling.

  * * *

  The rec yard was quieter than usual. The stress of NIAC’s investigation into what happened in the max security building weighed on everyone. Even those who had no idea what had happened or who was involved waited to find out if someone would be blamed, if we would all be blamed, or if NIAC would simply sweep the matter under the rug and pretend they had never lost control. I was leaning up against a tree, alone, thinking heavy thoughts and trying to enjoy a good brood.

  It had been three days, and if they hadn’t come for us by now, I figured that was good news. There were a number of Talents with the strength to cause the kind of damage I had.

  It had been so long since I’d let myself shift out of control like that, I was probably near the bottom of that list.

  “How are you feeling?” It was Elle’s voice. She had come up behind me. It was the first time any of them had spoken to me since right after it happened.

  “I’m okay.” I saw that I was unconsciously flexing muscles that were still sore and I stopped. I didn’t turn around. Maybe if I was rude, she would just go away.

  “I heard they moved Anderson into the Boy’s Dorm.”

  “Yeah. We’re roomies now. It’s awesome.”

  “He said the whole project’s been scrapped, for now anyway. Craig said they brought back the Intermediate test subjects. I’ve seen the three from the first experiment, by the way, fixed them up so they’re not responding the way they’re supposed to. Anderson says they’re calling the whole thing a total failure.”

  “Seems like you’re talking to Anderson quite a bit.”

  “Is that what you got out of that? How long do you think I’m going to wait around for you to get over yourself?”

  “Guess I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Well I’ll tell you,” she said, coming around to stand in front of me, “I’m pretty much going to wait forever. Is that how long it’s going to take?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that. Was that even a real question? It was hard to remember what we were talking about with her standing so close.

  “I don’t understand what this massive sulk is about.

  Karen says I have to give you time to readjust, or recalibrate, or I don’t know what. She says you’re embarrassed about what we saw. Are you actually embarrassed about saving my life?”

  “Well…I don’t know. No. Not about that. It’s just…”

  “The ten-foot, bright red, glowing eyed, long-limbed, muscle-bound…” She did this annoying imitation of my monster gait that looked like an ape, “…thing?”

  “It’s not my best side.”

  “Well, not your best side ripped through a steel door and jumped off a roof to rescue me and my best friend, so…I’m thinkin’ it’s a pretty okay side.”

  “Elle, you screamed.”

  She punched me. Hard.

  “Ow!”

  “You are not going to hold that against me! Oh my God! Did I mention ten feet tall with glowing eyes? And did anyone ever tell me you could do that? Noooo. What did you think I was going to do?”

  “Scream. Possibly cry, maybe faint, I dunno.”

  “I’m not a fainter.”

  “No, I don’t guess you would be.”

  “Are you done being an idiot yet?” she asked, stepping into me and wrapping her arms around my neck.

  “Uh, is that a trick question?”

  “’Cause I’ve been waiting around to thank you for saving my life and I’m getting a little impatient.”

  I felt myself start to smile for the first time in days. “Far be it for me to let my massive sulk get in the way of your mission,” I told her.

  And let her kiss me.

  The End

  I hope you enjoyed Impulse Control. It’s not over for these guys yet. Many of these characters will have important roles to play later on in the Talent Chronicles. But while you wait for their stories to get underway again, I hope you’ll let me introduce you to some other Talents. On the following pages you’ll find excerpts and information about other books in the Talent Chronicles series.

  You can also drop by my website, http://susan-bischoff.com to find links to sample excerpts, reviews, retailers, and the latest release info, as well as contact info, social media links, and my ramblings about writing, superheroes, Buffy, Firefly, and other topics of similar importance. While you’re there you can also sign up for the email newsletter to be notified of new releases and special offers.

  An excerpt from

  Hush Money

  Talent Chronicles #1

  Chapter 1

  Joss

  I already knew it had happened again.

  Not like I’m psychic, not really, but you don’t have to have any special mental Talent to see the signs…if you’re paying attention.

  Stacy Scarpelli had had her hand in the air for, like, five minutes. Eventually she was doing that thing where you lean one elbow on the desk, and your other elbow in your hand, like you’re going to collapse from the exhaustion of trying to get the teacher’s attention. But the teacher was paying attention. She was paying a lot of attention to checking off names on the roll; or supposedly taking roll, but totally not looking at that whole side of the room where Stacy was flinging her hand limply about on her wrist.

  And leave it to Stacy to be so wrapped up in Stacy that she didn’t notice how quiet it was this morning in first period English and how everyone just kind of sat there. The whispering would start later, as the shock wore off. Later, people would be saying how long they’d suspected, and how much they’d never really liked Krista anyway. But just then we were all looking around at each other and wondering who else was keeping secrets, and who would be the next one to disappear.

  Ms. Carter looked up and set her pencil down very carefully on her desk, lining it up precisely next to her planner, and finally raised her eyes to Stacy.

  “Yes, Stacy?”

  “You assigned me Krista to be my partner for the project. And it’s not like I wanted to leave it to the last minute, but she was always later later later, you know? And finally I said we gotta get together this weekend, and we were supposed to meet on Saturday morning before my tennis lesson? So I waited and waited for her, but she didn’t show up, and I had to get to my lesson, right? And then I called her house after, but no one answered. No one answered all weekend, and now she’s not even here today, and I don’t know if she did any work at all on it. I did some, but I was kind of waiting to find out what she had, you know, compare notes, because there was no point in us doing the same thing, right? But I couldn’t ’cause she wouldn’t answer her phone and then I didn’t know what to do, and I was going nuts all weekend trying to get a hold of her—”

  “Ok, Stacy. See me after class and we’ll work something out.”

  “I mean, I don’t think I should be penalized because she was too busy to work on the project. Which she probably didn’t anyway, which is probably why she didn’t show up Saturday, and dodged my calls all weekend, and she’s probably ditching school today so—”

  “She’s not ditching; she’s just gone.”

  All eyes slid toward Dylan. He sat sideways in his chair, the back of his leather jacket against the chalkboard along the side wall, long legs stretched out in front of him, his expression unreadable.

  In the seat behind him, Marco tipped back in his chair.

  “NIAC hauled her off.” His voice was la
ced with the kind of satisfaction over other people’s tragedies that made me think about his chair tipping too far and his skull bouncing off the linoleum.

  Ms. Carter glanced nervously around the room. I felt bad for her. How’s a teacher supposed to handle this subject?

  Encourage open discussion? Answer questions? Should we all share our feelings about the fact that we were never going to see Krista Pace again? It just seemed to me that the faculty probably knew about it earlier. Hell, the National Institutes for Ability Control probably sent out some kind of official letter to the school, wouldn’t you think? Our regular teacher should have been there for support and guidance instead of leaving the poor student-teacher to the wolves. But then, what would Mr. Krause have done differently?

  “[cough]Freak![cough]”

  “Shut up, Marco.” Dylan continued to bounce his pencil’s eraser on the desk and examine his boot-tops.

  “Why, did you and freak-girl have something goin’ on?

  Need a new date for Homecoming now that NIAC’s locked her up?”

  Enquiring minds want to know. My mind was particularly interested, unfortunately.

  “Thanks, but you’re not my type,” Dylan sneered back at his friend.

  “Ok, people, that’s enough,” Ms. Carter finally gathered the courage to enter the conversation. “The topic of Krista Pace is off-limits in this class. If you have questions regarding her disap— If you have questions, you may take them to Assistant Principal Sims—on your own time.

  Meanwhile, I believe we have some oral presentations to hear today. Stacy, you can see me after class about your project. Who wants to go first?”

  Personally, I think the school system is pretty messed up. I mean, if Krista had been hit by a bus or if she’d died of some terminal disease she’d been bravely fighting in secret for years, there’d be announcements, a moment of silence over the PA, maybe a memorial assembly. And we’d probably have some kind of shrine where people would leave pictures of Krista with flowers and little teddy bears and stuff like that. Out front somewhere, where the TV news cameras could see it clearly, and give it lots of attention, and call it a “makeshift memorial” fifteen times a freakin’ day.